When Putin took Crimea, I couldn’t remain silent, I felt too bad. People think this annexation is normal. They’ve been brain-washed. Most haven’t understood, they are too young. But those who, like me, lived as adults in the USSR, should be immune to such cynical, brutal propaganda.

To which Vincent Vassiliev replied:

Hi Oradour,

may I recommend the Russian émigré website ‘enrussie.fr’,

from which can be found:

On February 27, 2015 Boris Nemtsov was assassinated in the street outside the Kremlin to intimidate Russian society. Sviatoslav Vakarchuk gave a concert in New York that day and has dedicated a song to this extraordinary Russian politician. A memorial march is now provided in the center of Moscow and at the center of Saint Petersburg.

And everyone else ignored.

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Seems my previous entry below has ruffled a few feathers in Montana’s nest:

UT has been going for more than six years and has attracted well in excess of a million visits.

This in response to Jack Roth posting the 10,000 comment here.

All well and good but the UT was set up as a messaging site to cater for poster, whereas this place was designed to be a record of my time on Comment is Free. Post were only allowed because I failed to understand how to prevent them when initially editing the site. And the very first post was from the UT old-timer Dotterel to among other things express concern about my mental health. :)

Then on the few occasions that this place has been mentioned on CiF, apart from a couple of times when the posts slipped through the moderators’ net, the posts have almost immediately been censored. The same is not true of the UT which was able to advertise freely on YTU and even had some of it’s stars invited above the line. (MrsB, Montana, Martillo, Thaumaturge) Although some of them lived to regret the day they accepted the invitation.

“JackRoth is easy enough to ignore. For what feels like the 3 millionth time — the only people I have ever actually banned were Bitey & Sarah and I only did that because they were both aggressively trying to dominate and destroy this place.”

“Accusing a certain poster of being a pedophile (or at least not disagreeing with the spurious allegations)”

Jack, dear. You really shouldn’t believe everything Bitey writes on his site. But even he will admit that the worst offence in his eyes is that, despite his incessant creepy stalkerish behaviour towards me, I should have some how run to his defence when others called him names but didn’t. And that is the foundation upon which is built an entire website.

“I have no doubt in my mind whatseover that you will laugh your sad, paedo little socks off when you read this post, but I really couldn’t give a shit, scumbag. You will regret what you have said for far longer than I will be upset about it. You can bet on that.”

Strauss-Kahn will appear in court with 13 other people. This includes a barrister, luxury hotel managers, freemasons, a police commissioner and “Dodo the pimp” – the owner of a chain of brothels. Such a line-up has got the French media buzzing. But this is not a watershed moment for French society.

“Today is the last ideas thread. From tomorrow, we won’t be running these threads anymore. We still really want your ideas for articles, but we think the best way to do that will be to have a dedicated email address for people to send in suggestions. That is being set up asap. The editor of Cif, Kira Cochrane, will be running a talking shop tomorrow to explain more, but when this thread closes tomorrow there won’t be a new one. I know this will be upsetting for some, but please bear with us while we make some new changes to the site.”

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Today’s Music

As from today – (sometime in early 2013) “A Change is gonna Come” and hence the track which is from almost 500, vaguely described as pop and rock, on my MP4 player that I use mainly when I’m running at the gym or outdoors, or when I’m doing things I rather not like ironing clothes, cleaning and so on. This one by coincidence comes top of the list when arranged in alphabetical order. Of course I’ll intersperse them with some great jazz and classical music.

If I can set my usual personal abuse of bitey aside for once, (even though his creepy stalking behaviour is totally unacceptable), it might be worth considering the occasional valid point that he makes here. Deano seems to think that everyone should comment on here, but not bitey – deano will apparently accept every type of racist, classist, predujiced nonsense (and excuse it, as many others here do simply because they don’t want a confrontation) as long as he can ramble on about reaming his cock, and mungo, and can adore every young miss ad nauseam. Thauma just tells bitey to fuck off (fair enough). BB engages with him repeatedly – why? Many others have also told him to fuck off, myself included. But here’s a radical thought – we have endured all sorts of crap on here, but we draw the line at bitey. Why is that? I imagine that it’s because his contributions have been purely aggressive and negative, no surprise there (cf parallax, billp). But perhaps it’s also because many posters here feel that this is a safe space where inconvenient and uncomfortable opinions should not be heard. (Or eg. in the case of the bigoted and obnoxious Nap, should be defended on very dubious grounds – he’s young, unemployed, mentally fragile -WTF people!) That’s a very dangerous road to go down, and us old-timers have been there before. Well, if it’s the case that we don’t want to hear anything nasty here, then what’s the fucking point? At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I’ll say straight out that it wasn’t like that when we started this place, and I don’t think that it is the future of this place either.

On a more specific note, I’ll say to paulbj that your offensive assault on practically everybody here was at least honest and heartfelt and passionate (at the time). I’m not singling you out – it’s just a recent example, not the first, but not to be swept under the carpet either. And I would still call you a paddy nigger (but not in a bad way). Although I wouldn’t think of calling habib a Paki, or Turminder a half-caste Jock. Why is that, I wonder? What is the difference? Although if I wanted to say these things here, why shouldn’t I? These views exist in the real world so why should they not be expressed here? It’s surely a subject for discussion with all the animosity and insults and personal offence that that might entail with such a conversation on this forum (a bit like the real world but perhaps with more honesty!). UT – freedom of speech, no moderation, not Cif.

I suppose my point here is that if is this to be a forum for the exchange of ideas and political discussion (amongst other things), then treading on eggshells with each other, and everyone spouting the same tired old bullshit won’t actually do it. I think that you regular contributors here should think hard about what way you want UT to go. You’ll end up with the forum you deserve.

And on a final, very personal note, I support montana 100% in her response to BB‘s coments. As usual here, everybody wants to be pals and nobody wants to ‘take sides’. l’ll say straight out that montana‘s reaction to BB‘s comments was right on the money and BB was totally wrong in her personal (disgused as professional) interpretation of the case, her patronising manner and her dishonest response to montana. I’m disappointed that more intelligent posters here didn’t recognise that. Sorry, BB – sue me.

And lastly, at risk of sounding precious, I really think that you should all think seriously about how you use this forum which montana started and which she still works hard to maintain. Apart from thauma and myself, nobody has ever done anything practical here. I’m more or less out of the loop now, but I still care about this place. And who knows? It might disappear tomorrow. (My bold)

An interesting post scherfig and having looked at my own records, it might surprise you that as far as I can see, we never fell out about anything that either of us posted on CiF. I stand to be corrected on this because of certain IT problems that have been alluded to earlier on this thread, but I don’t think so.

You call me a stalker and ask “BB engages with him repeatedly – why?”.

And you answered your own question earlier this month when you wrote about her, far more perceptively and cuttingly than I could ever have brought myself to, if only because I like to engage with posters, like you, who present a challenge, rather than an easy target:

“You have a huge ego and an apparent need to prove your liberal credentials to us ordinary people on this blog. Your posts are mostly about you. You take pride in ‘bashing the fash’ but it just sounds like a schoolkid being stroppy. It’s bullshit. Sorry, but I find you incredibly naive politically (Lib Dem Ya?) so we’re never going to be best friends You get a lot more from this blog than you give. Fair enough.”

Some people have poured scorn on the fact that I have objected to the Guardian removing posts from the threads of articles which have been available on its internet site for many years. This matter arose after one of its commissioned writers asked for her profile to be removed. This request is not uncommon and indeed the paper itself uses it to punish posters who it feels have breached its Community Standards. What is I believe unique is for it to agree to a request for the removal of every comment within a thread, such that the original meaning of the discussion within that thread is seriously degraded.

We don’t know if Jane Nichol-Bell replied and if she did, what that reply was, as in an act of censorship, the Guardian has removed her posts from the thread that followed the article and on every thread she’d ever posted on. However I did pick up on TeBeMar’s question and provided a detailed response which I reproduce here. I had wanted to post it on another article by Frances Crook, which BeautifulBurnout had dismissed out of hand, but as the comments thread was closed I posted it instead on the Sabina Akhtar thread. My original is still on this thread.

“I wanted to post this on the Frances Crook article, “Our prisons are failing women”, which of course should have been titled “Our Justice System is Failing Women”, but missed the last post so to speak. But BeautifulBurnout, in the light of your response to TaBeMar’s question, “if you were asked to write the same article, now that you have had the debate, would it be the same?”, it seems worth posting here.

Frances Crook, it looks like this thread is just about finished and you have generated a host of comments from posters, many of whom who have yet to read the Commission’s report, but feel comfortable about dismissing its research and findings.

But you will know, as do the more aware on this thread that already the government has accepted some of your recommendations and no doubt will accept more. So thank you for coming here and sharing your thoughts with us and let’s look forward to the day that we really do have a justice system free of sexism.

Sometimes coincidence plays a cruel hand for each of us to play and when BeautifulBurnout, you dismissed Frances Crook’s article you wrote:

“You give some interesting statistics into the number of women who have been subjected to domestic violence, have mental health issues and have been in care as children, but the same can be said about men – yes, even the domestic violence, if we include being beaten black and blue at home by parents and siblings.”

So did you realise that the late Sabina Akhtar, about whom you were to write your first article for CiF, featured so prominently in the report that Frances Crook was writing about? Or had you like so many of the early posters on her thread, assumed this was just another article from the statistically illiterate “mad fems” and dashed off a rapid response?

And if you did know, did it not seem strange that you should come to such a different conclusion to the Commission of which Frances Crook was a member, about how Ms Akhtar’s death so clearly illustrated the institutional sexism of the criminal justice system?

Or if you didn’t know, do you not feel you might now consider that maybe the reaction of the CPS whose neglect has resulted in an apology to Ms Akhtar’s family and the retraining of its staff, should have been given more prominence in your article?

When I look at the 456 comments on Frances Crook’s thread, I discover that only I and AllyF, seem to have looked at the report about which she was writing. Others might have done but they don’t say that in their posts. And he refers to it as “the Fawcett report”, which it clearly isn’t, so doubts must be cast on his views, or at very least his motive.

In a way your willingness to engage in the debate here has put you in a more difficult position to the one you could have been in had you followed the ‘no comment’ response of so many of CiF’s writers, but you didn’t so there are more questions to ask.

You say in your article “They, (the police), had no alternative but to release him (the assassin) on police bail again. They acted properly within the law.”

But later you say if the Manchester Evening News report is correct, which it seems to be, ‘the investigation had been “no further actioned” and bail conditions had been dropped when Mannan was released, which puts a completely different spin on things.

So maybe with this information, you might not have said “They (the police) acted properly within the law.”

You posed the question, “First, if Kennedy is right, and if this case succeeds, aren’t we opening the doors to a deluge of similar cases?” To which having studied this case in more detail, you might have concluded the answer is yes, yes and yes again. And which battered partner is going to object? In fact I think on reflection you might now reconsider the inclusion of the entire paragraph about the implications of a successful case by Helena Kennedy QC.

It was Ultimathule* who correctly challenged your inclusion of the Smith – Jeffrey case as in some way exonerating the failure of the police to protect Ms Akhtar. For despite the judge’s ruling, any reasonable person would consider the police to have failed miserably in their duty to protect Stephen Smith, and maybe even more than they failed Ms Akhtar.

You ended your article “But, harsh though it may seem, what other possible approach can there be?”

Well I think you have in your own words shown that there were and are several other approaches which had they been adopted might have saved Sabina Akhtar’s life.” *

* Sadly, the post from Ultimathule was deleted by the moderators, along with a number of her other posts, so we have no chapter and verse of her challenge, but what we do have from the thread are parts of fifteen of Jane Nichol-Bell / BeautifulBurnout’s replies to people who’d read her article and posted. But let me start with one of my own:

Good posts from sambeckett2, mschin, MissK123 and speedkermit, someone who does seem to know about and be interested in the law relating to this matter, Brusselsexpats, ManchePaul, BeatonTheDonis, Emalina, stevejones123, george60, MrBullfrog, MistyChick, julianabanana, imasmadashell, TristramShandy, clandella, AlexJones, most of which BeautifulBurnout painfully ignores while bathing in the adulation heaped on her first article.

So whatever she and her acolytes would now like to present as the truth, each one of these posters below recorded their own concerns about her article and if she responded, (here in italics), what that response was.

@ BeautifulBurnout
Your comments below the line have very often been interesting and well-informed; they have had the benefit of drawing on what you have seen and what you know. For your first piece above the line, you have fallen into the journalistic trap of commenting on a case which you know nothing about other than what you have read in the newspapers, and you have produced just another opinion piece. If this had been written by one of the usual Guardian hacks, it would have been treated with far less indulgence. I think that in itself is worth thinking about.

As to the CPS apology, it is clear that they realise that they made a mistake because of the obvious and horrible consequences of not charging Mannan sooner. But the key question is, could a reasonable prosecutor, reviewing theevidence at the time, have decided not to charge?

BeautifulBurnout: “We don’t know if she made a series of complaints or if she just made the one complaint when she was threatened in July 2008 and informed the police on that occasion of the previous attacks. I don’t think this is misleading at all. We simply don’t know.”

But we do know that she went to the police more than once as the court records show and I posted earlier

BeautifulBurnout: “But this is where I disagree with you. When someone is investigated and prosecuted, the Crown has the whole machinery of the police and CPS behind it. The defendant has a solicitor on legal aid who has nothing like the resources to investigate and fact-find. I believe it is wrong to put someone in prison on the basis that they are likely to have done it. Society has to be pretty damn sure they have done it, imo.”

BeautifulBurnout Those posts about Manchester are worrying. I really am troubled by the idea that the GMP gets an average of 100 referrals a night on domestic violence. I wonder what the figures are nationally.

BeautifulBurnout: “The police and CPS were faced with a dilemma; breaching police bail conditions on its own is not an offence…”

Arrest for Breach of Bail Condition

“Under a power inserted into PACE by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 the police
can arrest you without warrant if you are released on bail from police detention
and a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting you have breached any
of the conditions of bail. You must be taken as soon as possible after the arrest
to the police station to which you are required to report.”

BB writes I would be grateful if you could point to the comment I made which says that I don’t think the conviction rate for rape should be improved

I was lead to believe that by how vigorously you attacked any attempts to change things.

I recall saying there shouldn’t be a lower standard of proof for rape vs other criminal offences and explained why.

And my argument actually was that the burden of proof in the rape case should be the same as in other cases , not lower like you chose to present it. I did say the burden of proof in the rape cases is disproportionately high. By which I suggested it was higher than in other cases. See, misunderstandings all around?

I also recall noting the most recent updates to the CPS procedures in relation to rape victims and commenting that it was “good stuff”.

Very well, I’m satisfied if you say you want to improve things your way . Perhaps you have a little different way to do it from mine but that’s how it goes…

BB says As to when Ms Akhtar informed the police about the other 25 attacks on her, we simply have no idea because that information is not in the public domain. I would be heartily surprised if she did report him 25 times and no action was taken.

Yet you write

During their short marriage, he was violent to her on 25 separate occasions

How do we know this if not from the public records? Again, very misleading. the passage quoted from the judge

“Police work elsewhere may be impeded if the police were required to treat every report from a member of the public that he or she is being threatened with violence as giving rise to a duty of care to take reasonable steps to prevent the alleged threat from being executed. (…) The judgment as to whether any given case is of that character must be left to the police.”

That was in relation to a man being attacked by his former lover, not a woman. Perhaps you misunderstood that from the article

Yet you used it in the article as if it was referring to this case. That is in itself pretty … misleading. It is your resposibility as a writer to write so that no misunderstandings arise from your text.

I think my position is, rather, how do we address it within the confines of the law.

Thanks for correcting my misreading of my understanding of your article & point of view regarding the both the specific case it refers to & the issue in general.

Ms Akhtar had an alarm in her house but should she have been moved to a safe haven pending the investigation? There are so many “ifs” in this that it is difficult to know why the CPS didn’t charge, but they clearly didn’t.

True, the “ifs” are not just a case of, “If A had done this, or B had done that, then the result might have been a very different C”, but, simply on the basis of the revised information from the MEN quote, can encapsulate so much more of the details of which we are to a large extent, & unwillingly, ignorant.

bitethehand links to some information in the Manchester Evening News which is interesting. I was not aware, from the tone of the other articles I’d seen, that the investigation had been “no further actioned” and bail conditions had been dropped when Mannan was released, which puts a completely different spin on things. Everything else I have read indicated that he was released again on the same bail conditions as before pending yet further investigation, so that is something which needs to be clarified.

I’d also like to thank Jane Nichol Bell / BeautifulBurnout for both writing the article and participating in the debate its generated. Given the time you’ve put into this I suspect your legal work is considerably more rewarding. :)

Your explanation of the legal difficulties involved in restraining a potentially violent man were particularly eye opening. However having been prompted to look into this case in some depth, I do feel there’s more to be uncovered. Perhaps if the Refuge and Helena Kennedy case comes to court we might get some more answers.

And to clear up any misunderstanding monkeyshark, I don’t write for The Guardian or any other newspaper, although I suppose I should be flattered by the suggestion, nor do I know Matt Seaton other than through the pages of CiF. There’s no one else to blame except me I’m afraid.

In response to a long exchange on the UT about this article and my actions on this site, BeautifulBurnoutposted the following after it was suggested she was being somewhat hypocritical:

Yeah, but here’s the fundamental difference: if I have posted shite that I regret, here or on CiF, I will come back and apologise or change my position. I don’t ask the mods/the site owner to airbrush history for me (or try and airbrush it myself).

Another myth that has grown to grotesque conspiracy-theory proportions is that I asked the Graun to remove all my BB posting history and they did. Well, I didn’t – I asked them to delete my profile to make it harder for people to trawl through it, pick n mix, mix n match stylee, and included a link to Bitey’s site as a demonstration of what I meant. Back in those days, before the upgrade, if your profile was deleted, although the comments still remained in the various threads, they were not listed under your profile any more.

Clearly the reference to “airbrush history” is about this article but once again BeautifulBurnout is incapable of commenting on anything without putting herself at the very centre of the universe.

Anyone reading the article will understand that it concerns the actions of the Guardian’s editorial staff; actions that in my view amount to censorship and falsification of the historical record. The fact that it was BeautifulBurnout’s entire posting history that was deleted is of little relevance. To remove the thousands of posts of anyone who has been posting for almost five years is editorial vandalism of the first order.

So what about BeautifulBurnout’s claim that she didn’t ask for the deletion of her entire posting history?

The first thing to ask is why hasn’t she asked for its reinstatement? Surely the Guardian has its website backed-up each day?

It is very rare that we will delete an entire user’s commenting history when requested by that user. Applications for this should be made to userhelp@guardian.co.uk and will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The same goes for individual comments.

And from Tim Gough, head of data protection at Guardian News and Media, on the thread following his article – Do below-the-line commenters have the right to remove their own comments?

We will consider requests for deletion on a case-by-case basis, but there is no absolute right to deletion of comments.

Which itself raises an interesting point. I found Tim Gough’s post via a search of the Guardian’s records using the search term “profile deleted“. The post is recorded at 3:47pm on 4 April 2013. But when I looked at the article – there is no post from Tim Gough at 3.47pm on 4 April 2013.

I am not sufficiently knowledgable about other posters who have asked for their profiles to be deleted, but if any come to light it will be easy to check if their posting history has disappeared from their profile page and the threads on which they posted.